


Tentative truths

by Terfle



Category: Mamma Mia! (2008)
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Friendship, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 09:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12478924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terfle/pseuds/Terfle
Summary: Harry learns something new about Tanya and offers a few wise words. An extension of a scene from the musical





	Tentative truths

‘Tanya!’

Harry appeared on the horizon, slowing down his swift lollop to a steady pace. She greeted him warmly, hoping to take Pepper’s attention off of her. She was slightly mortified after last night’s cavorting but true to form, she gave little hint to it. Harry settled into the recently vacated deckchair and rubbed his wet hair vigorously with his towel. She noted his orange and blue shark print swimming trunks with amusement. Despite his pressed trousers and shirts it was obvious his ties, socks and underwear were bright patterned things that hinted to more of an entertaining personality than he would normally be credited.

‘Just been for a swim. The water’s lovely out there. Saw Bill and Rosie fishing in a small boat. Getting on like a house on fire I’d say. Be surprised if they catch any fish.’

They chattered on with small talk for a while, Harry wondering when he should come out with what he was thinking of saying, the reason he sought her out in the first place. He should just say it, he thought.

‘Actually I have a question.’

Tanya looked over her sunglasses at him.

‘Go on.’

‘Well. Donna must be tearing her hair out with all of this wedding planning. What would the father of the bride do?’

She carried on staring at him. He shifted uncomfortably in his deckchair. She motioned for him to come closer and gave him his answer.

‘Usually he pays.’

He drew back and gave an awkward laugh.

‘Oh um. Ha. Jolly good, jolly good. But I was thinking of something a bit more like what kind of advice would he give?’

He looked anxiously at her.  She gave nothing away, her brain whirring with the understanding that he must have found out about Sophie. How, she did not know but it was evident that he suspected something.

‘Well my father drew the line at paying for the last one.’

Harry remembered that Tanya had been married three times. How did one keep up with all of these comings and goings he wondered?

‘I was about to walk down the aisle and he said to me _‘don’t worry dolly, I know a good lawyer.’_ She cackled at the memory and Harry joined her, momentarily distracted by the situation. He had no doubt that her father had paid for the divorce.

‘Why are you asking?’

‘Oh. Just wondering. I suppose Donna has to do all of that’ he said vaguely. He thought that was stupid as soon as he’d said it. Tanya narrowed her eyes. The thought of him revealing what she thought he might know was hanging by a thread between them. She hoped he’d crack first.

‘You and your partner haven’t had children?’ She enquired, sipping her hangover cure. She wasn’t sure it was helping.

‘Alas, life hasn’t thrown me in the path of paternity’ he said wistfully. She couldn’t decide whether he really didn’t know about Sophie or he was just a good liar. She didn’t know him well enough.

‘The other half wasn’t quite keen on the idea’ he explained. ‘But you’ve been married um, a few times. You might know how that is.’

‘Meaning?’

Harry hoped he hadn’t put his foot in it.

‘Well, it’s um rather unusual to have been married for quite a while and not had any children’ he continued, cautiously.

‘You mean been married to so many men and not had children?’ She finished the implication with an easy smile.

‘Well. Yes.’

His worry about having offended her was acute when instead of laughing about it; she turned her head away and gazed out to the sea.

‘I mean, you must have had a good life with them. Not having children frees you up to do whatever you want really.’ He wondered if he was babbling.

‘That’s true.’ She said nothing else for a minute. He thought she was a bit miffed.

‘Well. It was expected of me. I did have a stepchild with the last husband. A bit of a brat but what did you expect when you grew up learning that daddy’s money could bail you out of anything?’

‘But not the chance to have your own?’

‘I never said that.’

He waited for her to expand on the subject. Softly did it.

‘I had the chance. With Archie’ she said quietly.

He tried to remember which one that was.

‘Your second husband?’

She was surprised that he had remembered.

‘Yes.’

‘But he didn’t want one?’

‘ _I_ didn’t really want one. But I nearly had one.’

He wasn’t sure what she was referring to but had a suspicion.

She stared bleakly ahead.

‘I lost it at 3 months.’

He noticed she referred to the baby as ‘it.’ She hadn’t been attached to the idea, he concluded. Still, he was shocked. It was clear that it wasn’t something most people knew about her.  

‘Did you give yourself time to come round to the idea?’ He asked gently.

‘Not really. It was over before it had really started. It was a shock to find out. Me, a mother. I don’t know how I would have coped.’ She drained the glass.

He thought she would have had a nanny and boarding school to help her out but kept his mouth shut.

‘Archie was devastated. I felt like I should have been but it didn’t hit me until later. Really, after the panic and the pain and all of that blood, I felt nothing but relief’ she admitted. He couldn’t tell her expression from behind the sunglasses but he noticed her eyes flicker several times within those dark confines. He thought he noted a slight tone of regret. He gently enquired about it. She turned and looked at him, still staying within the darkness, giving her some anonymity.

‘Sometimes I wonder what would have been. I didn’t really want children but I knew or I thought they would happen someday. I thought maybe if I had one, I’d feel maternal. I don’t know if I ever could be’ she confessed. She hadn’t been given the chance to know in the end but occasionally thought about if it worked out for her.  Would she still have been with Archie? Ended up with a litter of cubs they would have loved to distraction? Given up her old self, the one who liked to party to excess, the person she still was now? She doubted she could be anything else and she didn’t want to change it. Harry could see all of these things running through her mind as it ran through his.

‘You never can plan life events’ he told her with humble authority. ‘I had my life mapped out and did as was expected of me but something overturned and after a while this inconvenience turned out to benefit me in the end, even if my family lost a little bit of respect for me because of it.’

She wondered what that might be.

‘The older you get, the more you realise that you must be true to yourself otherwise you’ll never truly feel content. Even if sometimes how you feel about something is the opposite of what people expect from you.’

‘It just wasn’t meant to be’ she stated.

‘Perhaps. But how you felt about it isn’t invalid just because it wasn’t the response people were hoping for.’

She stared at him, wondering how he had got into her head and confirmed what she had tentatively thought over the years. Tanya wasn’t a hesitant person but she had been fragile at that point in her life, 10 years ago and had spent moments every so often from then on wondering if how she had felt was the right thing to feel.

‘That’s pretty much what Rosie said’ she murmured, suddenly feeling tired.

Rosie had been at her side like a shot and had assured her that everybody dealt with things in their own way but occasionally Tanya could feel the pressure of conformity and it crowded her, making her feel claustrophobic. She sensed that it wasn’t something that Harry needed to be told, he knew it already. She had her suspicions as to why that was but kept her thoughts to herself.

He smiled. ‘She was right. Take your advice from the people who really matter, not the ones who think they matter.’

She nodded. They sat in companionable silence. The realisation that he was one of the most content people she’d ever met might have been awkward but it just wasn’t. They had something in common and she would find out what it was sooner or later.

 


End file.
